


In September

by legoline



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legoline/pseuds/legoline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean stares at him, a little bundle filled up with terror but no words, and John’s world goes mute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In September

**Author's Note:**

> Another oldie. Much love to Raynedanser for the beta.

Only four days, _four_ fucking days, after Mary got pinned to the ceiling in what John knows couldn’t have happened but still somehow did, he realises Dean has stopped speaking. 

Time has passed in a blur of fire and smoke and his own voice echoing in the distance, crying Mary’s name. He recalls checking into the hotel, and there are faint memories of feeding the baby and changing his diapers every once in a while. He sees himself with Sammy in his arms and a towel thrown over his shoulder, bottle of milk on the table. But the memories feel like watching someone else doing it.

He remembers tucking Dean in on the couch that night. Dean with soot on his cheek and his hair flying from his face. Dean with his eyes wide and frightened, staring at his dad in silence, waiting for Dad to make it all better, to tell him everything would be okay. Only John didn’t tell him. Said nothing of those things he should have said, that Mary would have said, because God, Mary’s dead and he’s left with their two sons and he’s got no idea how to handle this. 

So he forgets to tell Dean. And Dean never forgets that. 

And then, he’s so wrapped up with talking to the police and insurance companies and looking after Sammy and grieving for Mary, that he almost, almost forgets Dean. He fixes Dean breakfast, lunch and dinner, and puts him to bed at night, but the rest of the day—God, Dean just sits there on the couch, curled on himself with no words on his lips and John just—doesn’t notice. Dean’s four, and he knows how to use the toilet and he’s a good kid and as long as he doesn’t start screaming, he’s all right...right? 

Four days. It takes John four days until he notices with a sudden thunder the absence of Dean’s chatter, Dean’s chiming voice and his light giggle. He’s fixing dinner, hamburgers, and usually Dean keeps him company and tells him just how much he likes daddy’s hamburgers. Not this time. Dean doesn’t move from the couch, watches from the distance with not much interest. He’s got his arm around a teddy bear that one of their— _former_ neighbours—brought over. He looks pale, tired and terrified. He’s not wearing socks and John can’t remember whether in the past four days Dean’s ever put anything on that’s not the pajamas he wore _that_ night. John just...forgot to make sure.

Dean stares at him, a little bundle filled up with terror but no words, and John’s world goes mute.

***

They move into a small apartment a week later, and Dean still doesn’t speak. Barely moves, really. Barely eats. Barely does anything. His body is tensed up every hour, every minute of the day, prepared to leap and run. He listens intently with a frown on his face that belongs on the face of an old man and once the thought crosses John’s mind that maybe Dean doesn’t speak so his voice won’t drown out other sounds. 

Three days in the new apartment—John sleeps in the living room so the boys can have the only bedroom—John notices Dean doesn’t sleep. John checks on Sammy and Dean before he goes to sleep, and every time he does, Dean’s lying in Sam’s crib wide awake, eyes on Dad when he enters. 

He actually tucks Dean in the big bed for the night, and Dean looks so lost in it, a boy in a grown-up world, and when John checks on the boys later the night Dean’s always somehow climbed into Sam’s crib. 

On the fifth night, John lifts Dean up and carries him outside to spend the night with John on the couch in the living room, hoping that it might help Dean, but as soon as they leave the bedroom Dean starts crying, sobs in desperate hitches.

In the end, they all sleep in the boys’ bedroom from then on. Dean’s head rests against John’s chest and his eyes are still wide with fear. John pulls his son close, can feel Dean’s heart going fast and shallow. He leaves a night light on, but it still takes a week until Dean isn’t scared of falling asleep anymore, even when his dad is near.

***

Four weeks after the fire, John takes Dean to the doctor. He’s tried absolutely everything to trick Dean into talking; promises and candy and even begging. Once, just once, he even felt desperate enough to threaten Dean with a spanking if Dean didn’t start talking again. He shouldn’t have done that and the shame hits him just a moment later. He spends the following days cooking Dean’s favourite meals and buying Dean a new teddy and letting him watch TV until past eight.

If only Mary was here. She would know what to do; she wouldn’t have scared the heck out of a terrified little boy because she’s running out of ways to handle the situation. 

More than once he finds himself wishing that whatever came for Mary had taken him instead. For Mary’s sake. For the sake of the boys. He isn’t doing nearly well enough.

***

The doctor advises him to make an appointment for Dean with a child psychiatrist. 

Dean sees the psychiatrist once a week for three months. He walks into the room all by himself, shoulders as square as a now five-year old can make them. John waits an hour in the waiting room, Sammy on his lap, wondering whether this is the right way to go. Hoping that one day Dean will understand why his daddy did this, that he only meant well. 

Three months, and Dean makes no progress, the psychiatrist tells John. Dean won’t speak. Neither will he play with the figures and stuffed animals in the room, or draw pictures. Every week, he’ll just come in and sit in the chair and stare at his doctor, watching every step she makes. Waiting for the hour to be over, for the moment when she tells him he can go back to his dad and _see you next week._

“Does he communicate with you at all?” she asks John one day. She looks worried, but it’s more than that. John has seen that look on people’s faces many times. She’s ready to give up on his son.

“What do you mean?”

“When you talk to him, does he react? Bob his head into a yes, for example, or does he use gestures?”

“Yeah,” John replies slowly, recalling breakfast from this morning. He’d asked Dean if he wanted more milk and Dean had shook his head. 

“Good. I was beginning to fear he’d locked himself in completely. I haven’t yet gotten through to him. He just refuses to communicate with me. Haven’t seen a child as introverted in a long while.”

She says more after that but John’s stopped listening. He doesn’t take Dean to the psychiatrist anymore. She can’t help.

***

Dean doesn’t play a lot anymore, something that feels like another silent accusation to John. Dean used to be hard to keep up with; always on his feet, always running around, always asking questions. These days Dean just sits by Sam’s crib with a concentrated frown furrowing his forehead, watches his brother crawl around. He always kneels or sits stiffly, too upright for a kid, like he’s trying to make himself taller than he is. 

On good days, he builds a circle—a wall, presumably—of stuffed toys the neighbours gave “that poor kid who lost his mommy in a fire” in the middle of the room and curls up in it. He never sleeps, always keeps an eye open, but at least he does something that resembles play. Only John knows it’s not actually a play. All play inside his boy burned up that night, died alongside Mary. He’d give anything, _anything_ , if he could only hear Dean laugh again.

“Dean, do you want to go to the playground?” John asks, and Dean glances up with no excitment in his eyes, only fatiguee and worry, and shakes his head in a no. 

John’s not surprised when his heart doesn’t sink. They’ve been here before, dozens of times. Maybe his heart just can’t sink any lower anymore.

***

It’s Sammy, of all people, who brings the change in Dean.

Two weeks before Sammy turns one, John walks in and watches his youngest push himself up in his crib until he’s standing on his two feet. Wavering. Sammy chuckles in glee, flails his hands and that throws him off balance. He falls and ends up on his behind, but apparently the achievement has left him in such high spirits he doesn’t even start to cry. Instead, he gives it a new try and John just stands in wonder as he witnesses how Sammy takes his first two steps. 

And that’s what starts it.

Every day now when it’s sunny John takes Sammy down to the park to have him walk in the fresh air a bit. Dean, who goes anywhere Sam goes, accepts his fate with slouched shoulders and the expression of a martyr on his face. His hand is curled around John’s arm as they stroll side by side. Dean’s head jerks everytime he hears something, turns to identify the source of the noise. His eyes move rapidly, scanning the park and his steps are timid, much slower than Sammy’s.

Eventually, as Sammy gets more confident on his feet, he starts running. John lets him, knowing that his boy won’t go too far, will eventually stop and wait for them. The park is open lawns mostly, so Sammy can’t get lost and as long as he doesn’t go near the entrances and consequently streets, he should be fine. But Dean doesn’t know that. 

He feels Dean tugging at his arm, with his eye brows in a deep frown, and biting his lower lip. A hint of panic shines in his wide green eyes. It hits John then that little Sammy has put his older brother in a dilemma—either stay with his dad, or do what his instincts tell him to do and run after his baby brother. In the end, Dean’s instinct wins, and he lets go of John’s hand.

***

The first two or three weeks, every time that Sam runs off puts Dean in a state of near-panic. He herds Sam like a German shepherd, nervously and continously, trying to coax Sammy into returning back to Dad. 

“Come back to Dad,” he says with his eyes but Sam just laughs and picks a flower from the lawn. 

Then after a while, there’s a change in Dean. 

John’s not sure when exactly the change started even though he’s been watching his sons closely. He just knows that one day, after long and intense thinking and estimating, it seems like Dean has decided the park is a safe place. His curiousity is kindled. Together with Sammy, he discovers the world anew.

Sammy points and Dean looks. Sam picks up something and Dean studies it. Dean finds something and shows it to Sammy. Sammy laughs and Dean’s lips too curve into a smile. It’s the closest to laughing he gets, and the hope John thought he’d lost flickers up again.

***

Dean shows interest in his toys again, real childlike interest. Not the faint checking that’s been coming from Dean since _that_ night, the brief glimpse he gave his teddys and bricks and baseball before he was convinced no harm was coming from them. But Sam’s running around in the apartment too, points to things and beams at Dean expectantly when he finds something that Sammy thinks could be fun.

Sammy wants to play and explore things and in the beginning Dean joins the play mostly for Sam’s sake. Dean can’t refuse to anything Sam wants him to do, and he follows Sam’s pointing finger dutifully. 

Until that day when Dean suddenly seems to find real joy in playing with his toys again, and using the apartment as an indoor playground, just like he began to enjoy going out and running around in the park. Sammy’s always on his trail. Just as much as Dean follows Sam everywhere, Sammy clings to Dean. They’re truly inseparable. 

Maybe, John thinks, that’s exactly what they need. Without a mother. With a dad who no matter how hard he tries to set things right makes the wrong decisions and says the wrong things all the time.

Sam pokes Dean and Dean laughs out loud, a high-pitched squeak that brings tears to John’s eyes because it’s a symphony to his ears, a beautiful sound he was certain he’d never hear again.

***

In September, Sammy babbles his first words. John can’t say which one is really the very first, but among four or five words “Dean” and “Dad” are definitely there. Sam finds out quickly that in order to get Dean’s attention instantly, he only has to say his brother’s name. 

Sam babbles, learns more words. He talks to Dean in one-word sentences, nonetheless expecting answers from his brother, and John has a suspicion Sam’s going to turn into a chatterbox always doing exactly that—looking for answers. Waiting for answers. Expecting answers. 

Sam points his finger at a plant and asks, big eyes fixed on his big brother in admiration, “That?” 

Dean looks at Sam for a moment, opens his mouth and closes it again. His body shakes a bit and Dean shifts uneasily. 

So Sam asks again, and Dean who can never say no to Sammy, finally smiles, opens his mouth and tells him.

-end-


End file.
